Free Legal Help in NY

New York's chief judge is looking at corporate in-house lawyers to help fill the need for legal services for those who can't afford it.

Judge Jonathan Lippman has named a new committee to examine ways some 9,000 in-house lawyers who are not now admitted to practice law in New York can help meet the legal needs of the state's poor.

In other efforts to close what Lippman's called a justice gap for millions of people forced to handle civil legal matters on their own, administrators are requiring 50 hours of free service work as a condition for getting a New York law license, while raising the annual service goal for all lawyers to 50 hours yearly along with mandatory reporting every two years.